Meredith had always known about magic. Her family was magic, one of the most powerful mage lines out there. Having lost her parents to all the fighting though, she stayed far away from it, focusing on school and lading a primarily normal life.
Unti...
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It was hours before Rush regained consciousness, and the entire time she dreaded what would happen when he woke. Would he finish what he'd started, or would he not remember at all? Curse this man and his ability to do things half asleep. Half asleep or not, he'd been fully committed to killing her.
How was she supposed to feel about that?
"Meredith?" Rush called her name as he opened his eyes groggily, and she pulled from his grip.
Now conscious, Rush released her, and she retreated away from him, hitting the wall next to the side of the bed. Rush immediately noticed her apprehension and tilted his head slightly, in just the way he did when confused.
"I remember leaving you at the mage headquarters. How did you get back here?" Rush's eyes were clouded and he ran his hands over his face.
"Neil dropped me off when you never came back. What did you expect me to do, bunk there?" Mer said, allowing the aggravation with him having abandoned her to smother her fear
"I didn't expect you to return," Rush said with his normal stoic face.
"So what? You were going to wake up and track me down to kill me?" Mer hissed at him, and his eyebrows crawled up his face in actual emotion.
"Kill you?" Rush sighed in the way he did before composing himself.
When he reached his hand out to her face, she jerked to the side. Looking to his hand, he glanced back to her and continued it on its course to touch her face. Shaking against the wall, she waited while he trailed his fingers down her cheek but then dropped them to his side.
"Why are you afraid of me?" Rush asked, but his expression had sunk into something between exhaustion and anger.
"I–I came in in the middle of the day. You... you held me down and tried to kill me!" Mer had meant to yell it at him, but it wavered to grief as she did her best to keep any tears from falling.
"You were actually here then?" Rush groaned and fell onto his side in exhaustion. "Sorry, I was having a nightmare."
"What are you, five? Should I expect your nightmares to be a threat to my life every day?"
Rush shook his head. "I don't think I have it in me to kill you, nightmares or not."
"My neck disagrees. If you hadn't passed out, I'd be a corpse." Mer seethed, but it made Rush smile sheepishly at her.
"Even in my nightmare, I never went through with it," Rush insisted with a smile, but she glared, crunching her eyebrows lower. "I hesitated." The only thing that crushed her anger was how sad Rush actually sounded. For him to voice any emotion it had to be strong. "I couldn't do it, and when I backed away from you, you smirked at me, and then Darc Aurion cut my neck almost clean off and left me on the ground to die."
